“Thank you, thank you,” said Adams. “I have quite sufficient money for my needs, and, if it is the same to you, I would rather pay for my outfit myself.”
“As you please,” said Captain Berselius, quite indifferently. “But Schaunard’s account and the account for drugs and instruments you will please send to M. Pinchon; they are part of the expedition. And now,” looking at his watch, “will you do me the pleasure of staying to déjeuner?”
Adams bowed.
“I will notify you to-night at your address the exact date we start,” said Captain Berselius as he led the way from the room. “It will be within a fortnight. My yacht is lying at Marseilles, and will take us to Matadi, which will be our base. She will be faster than the mail-boats and very much more comfortable.”
They crossed the hall, Captain Berselius opened a door, motioned his companion to enter, and Adams found himself in a room, half morning room, half boudoir. A bright log fire was burning, and on either side of the fireplace two women—a girl of about eighteen and a woman of thirty-five or so—were seated.
The elder woman, Madame Berselius, a Parisienne, pale, stout, yet well-proportioned, with almond-shaped eyes; full lips exquisitely cut in the form of the true cupid’s bow; and with a face vigorous enough, but veiled by an expression at once mulish, blindish, and indolent—was a type.
The type of the poodle woman, the parasite. With the insolent expression of a Japanese lady of rank, an insult herself to the human race, you will see her everywhere in the highest social ranks of society. At the Zoölogical Gardens of Madrid on a Sunday, when the grandees of Spain take their pleasure amidst the animals at Longchamps, in Rotten Row, Washington Square, Unter den Linden, wherever money is, growing like an evil fungus, she flourishes.
Opposite Madame Berselius sat her daughter, Maxine.
Adams, after his first glance at the two women, saw only Maxine.
Maxine had golden-brown hair, worn after the fashion of Cléo de Mérode’s, gray eyes, and a wide mouth, with pomegranate-red lips. Goethe’s dictum that the highest beauty is unobtainable without something of disproportion was exemplified in the case of Maxine Berselius. “Her mouth is too wide,” said the women, who, knowing nothing of the philosophy of art, hit upon the defect that was Maxine’s main charm.